How To Make Your Battery Last Longer In Pokemon Go

If you've been playing Pokemon Go through the weekend, you may have noticed that the smash-hit mobile app has a nasty habit of chewing through your device's battery life. While there isn't a fix available just yet, you might be surprised to know that the game offers a couple of options to make your time with those pocket-sized monsters last a little bit longer.

Over the past several days, folks have been reporting that, not only is Pokemon Go draining batteries like there's no tomorrow, but some devices are getting super hot from having the app running too long.

The developers have already stated that they're working on a fix to address the battery draining issue, but that will probably come secondary to bringing the servers up to speed and then actually launching the game in additional territories. Still, at least it's being looked into and, hopefully, we shouldn't have much longer to wait before catching Pokemon means you're stranded in the middle of nowhere with no charge.

If you've been too busy playing Pokemon Go to fiddle with the settings, you may have missed the fact that the game offers a "Battery Saver" option tucked away in its menus. You'll want to make sure vibration is on, obviously, but this feature makes it so that, when your phone is turned upside-down (like when it's in your pocket), it automatically dims the screen in order to use less power.

Unfortunately, Pokemon Go has to be running in order for the vast majority of its functionality to be working. That means your phone is going to be chewing through the battery while you're wandering around, looking for a Pokemon to catch. With this feature active, you should be able to put your phone in your pocket and be notified via vibration that a Pokemon is nearby. While in your pocket, the phone should be using less battery.

Hopefully there will be some sort of widget functionality to make Pokemon Go drain even less of your battery in the future but, for now, that's about all the game can offer.

Of course, as The Daily Dot points out, there are other ways to save your precious battery life while playing Pokemon Go.

For starters, your phone already offers its own battery-saving features, which you can activate in order to help the cause. On top of that, dimming your screen manually should help make things less costly for your battery. Folks are also updating their map data through Google Maps before playing the game, which should keep Pokemon Go from having to do the heavy lifting while in-game.

We would, of course, be open to hearing any other suggestions to prolong battery life while playing Pokemon Go if you readers have any good ideas. Fill us in in the comments section below.